And the session goes on …

Frontiersman editorial board

Members of the Alaska Legislature have, for the most part, returned home from their 120-day session, but they'll be back in Juneau on June 24 to finish issues they weren't able to resolve during the regular session.

It seems a bit ironic that Alaska's legislators, the majority of whom believe we're edging ever closer to the lip of a chasmic gap in state funding, are willing to cut state agencies to the bone and deeper, but unwilling to use their own session time wisely enough to finish within the 120-day time line.

Of course, politics is the name of the game, and holding bills in a committee simply because of a dislike of the bill sponsor, as was reportedly the case with a bill filed by Andrew Halcro, R-Anchorage, is par for the course. But when a blatant disregard of the public process adds up to a costly special session, it leads one to wonder how seriously state legislators take the fiscal gap -- or the best interest of constituents, for that matter.

Sen. Robin Taylor, R-Wrangell, the chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, held a bill that would extend the authority of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska in his committee for several weeks. The bill is yet unresolved, and the legislature was called back to Juneau on June 24 to resolve the issue, at significant cost to Alaskans.

The most frustrating aspect of the special sessions is that all legislators are held to task for the lack of action by a few. And Alaskans have to pay for every legislator to return to Juneau, although it is just a small handful of legislators who will work out the nuts and bolts -- the majority of legislators are simply on hand to cast a final vote.

It leads one to wonder whether moving the legislature out of its now remote location to somewhere more accessible may be a beneficial idea after all. Maybe a little added pressure during the beginning of the session would spur legislators to do less elbow-rubbing during the first months of the session and buckle down a little earlier on.

After all, isn't it more fiscally responsible to complete the work of the state in the allotted time and direct the $200,000 presently budgeted for special session costs back to the general fund -- or maybe to fill in the funding gap and open the nine Mat-Su parks set for closure?